What are known as industry standard are so-called small form factor (SFF) transceivers and small form factor pluggable (SFP) transceivers of small design which are arranged in a housing. In this case, the transceivers may be of pluggable design (SFP transceivers) or be fixedly connected to a housing (SFF transceivers). The known transceivers have, in addition to an optoelectronic transmission module and an optoelectronic reception module, an internal printed circuit board which runs parallel to the optical axis of the transceiver and contains electronic circuits for the converter modules, such as a driver module and/or a preamplifier module. The transceiver is arranged on a main circuit board, which is electrically connected to an electrical interface of the internal printed circuit board via a plug, for example. An SFP transceiver is described in DE 101 14 143 A1 for example.
EP-A-0 463 214 describes a transmission and reception module for a bidirectional optical signal transmission, which is known as BIDI module. In the case of this module the two active components, namely light transmitter and light receiver, are incorporated as independent components in a manner hermetically tightly encapsulated in a common module housing, in the interior of which a beam splitter and a lens coupling optical system are arranged. The module housing has a fiber connection for a common optical fiber. One optical signal is coupled into the coupled optical fiber by the transmitter, while at the same time another optical signal can be received from the same fiber. The two signals are separated by a beam splitter, which may also contain a wavelength-selective filter which reflects a specific wavelength and allows another wavelength to pass.
WO 02/095470 A1 discloses an electro-optical module for the transmission and/or reception of optical signals of at least two optical data channels, in which at least two optical waveguide sections having in each case at least one beveled end face are provided. The optical waveguide sections are positioned axially one behind the other at the beveled end faces. For a specific optical channel, light is coupled in and light is coupled out at the beveled end face of an optical waveguide section at an angle to the optical axis of the optical waveguide. In this case, the end face is coated with a wavelength-selective filter for wavelength separation purposes.
WO 02/084 358 discloses a transmission module for an optical signal transmission, in which a transmission device is arranged on a transmission device substrate and a detection device is arranged on a detection device substrate and the transmission device substrate and the detection device substrate are arranged one above the other with respect to the direction of the emitted or received light. In this case, the transmission device substrate and/or the detection device substrate are transparent to the wavelength emitted by the transmission device. The known transmission module provides an advantageous construction although with only one detection device.
It is endeavored to provide transceivers of small design for a bidirectional optical data transmission which can realize a high data rate and at the same time can be produced cost-effectively.